The Great Th S Debate
by Xenolord
Summary: Finally tired of the Aerith x Aeris thing, I cooked this up. WARNING: If you brain cannot comprehend crazy good logic, do not read this. Fourth Wall? What's that?


Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Any resemblences to any real people, living or dead, is completely coincidentaly.

Author's Note: This shit pisses me off so much, I just have to make a rant about it. So, without further adeu, I present, The Great Th S Debate. Starring Samus Aran, and Cloud Strife.

The Great Th S Debate

"Hello, fellow viewers, and welcome to the debate of the century!" The newsreporter spoke into her microphone, smiling. "Today, we have a very exciting continuation from last weeks 'What the hell are M-Tentacles' episode, with 'Th or S, which is right?' We take you down now to the stage, where our contestants are taking the stage." She smiled and exhaled, relieved when the light clicked off on the camera. She turned around and pocketed the microphone. "This better be more interesting then last night, or I'm gonna scream.

-Stage.-

The stage was very well lit, with two podiums, one on either side, and a large chalkboard in the middle. The chalkboard had 'TH' written on one side, and 'S' written on the other. Steadily, from the left side of the screen, we see a woman clad head to toe in orange armor, minus the helmet take her podium.

"Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Great Th S Debate. I am Xenolord, your moderator, and I would like to introduce your sides. Coming in tonight from the world of Zebes, and supporting the 'S' side of the issue, is Samus Aran." The crowd erupted in applause as Samus stood behind her podium and bowed. From the other side, strode a man in a purple body suit with spiked blond hair. "And representing the 'Th' side of the issue, joining us all the way from Midgar, is Cloud Strife." There was equal reception for the man. He stood at his podium. "Now, if we would have the... erm... 'object' of the debate, please come out." From the side of the stage, a woman in a lightish red dress and took a seat center stage. "Mrs. Gainsborough, thank you for coming out. Now, I cannot, or at least, I am morally obligated to refuse to use her first name, as this is the whole reason behind this debate. Now, backstage, Cloud, you won the toss, and elected to begin. So, here, for all of you just joining us, is the questiong. Aeris, or Aerith, which is correct?"

"Thank you, Mr. Lord. Well, as most of you no doubt know, the common amount of Final Fantasy fans agree that Aerith is the proper pronunciation of her name. Now, yes, I know, it was pronounced Aeris in Final Fantasy Seven and Advent Children, but for the most part, any other title she has made an apperance in, her name has been pronounced Aerith." Cloud finished his opening statements. "I, whole heartily side with the proper pronunciation as... Aerith." The woman center stage smiled and nodded to Cloud.

"Thank you, Mr. Strife. Mrs. Aran, do you have any opening words?"

"Yes, I do, actually." Samus began. "I am a firm believer of 'Old Word, Right Word'. I admit it, I'm a sucker for originals, which is why I believe, when Square Enix, then Square Soft, brought Final Fantasy Seven over from Japan, and translated it, I think they were right calling her Aeris." The woman smiled to Samus and nodded. Good points to start off with.

"Opening statements are now complete. We will now move into the Audience question and answer segment of our program, where audience members will question a contestant's reasons, and the contestant must defend themselves. We have a question here from a Tidus, who is the main character of Final Fantasy Ten. Tidus asks Samus..." Xeno looked at the bottom of the card. "'Why do you have to discriminate? Let them call her what they want.'" Xeno looked up. "What's your response, Mrs. Aran?"

"Well, first off, usually, I would just let her call her what they want, but I see equal numbers of people who are on either side. Fifty percent of people call her Aeris, the other fifty call her Aerith. I just think it's time for me to take a stand and finally bring this whole thing to a close."

"Excellent. The next question is from a M. Brain, who is the main antagonist of the Metroid series. M. Brain asks Cloud..." He looked down. "'Is it true that you and Mrs. Gainsborough were at one point, or still are now, an Item? Isn't that against the rules?'" Xeno looked up. "A very good point. Your response?"

"Well, yes, it's true we were at one point an item, but if you pay attention to the plot line of Final Fantasy Seven, Sephiroth kills Aerith. So, therefore, and feelings I had for her, are automatically placed in the past tense."

"Oh... nice recover." Samus muttered, smiling.

"Answer received and accepted. Next question comes to us from Paine, who is a player character in the well-recieved title Final Fantasy Ten Two. Paine askes Samus:" He looked down again. "'Why even get into all this Aerith Aeris stuff?'" He looked up once more. "A very good question. Your response?"

"Simple. I have a thing about indecision. I hate it. When I see someone, or a group of people being indescisive, I have to step in. It's nothing personal towards Mrs. Gainsborough, understand me."

"Very good." Xeno replied when she finished. "Next question is from a Ridley von Ridley the Third. Ridley asks Cloud: 'This issue has been dead for some time. Why persue?' Your response?"

"I persue because I must. I must see this debate through to the end. No matter the outcome."

"A well-worded answer. Next question is from an Auron, who is a player character in Final Fantasy Ten. Auron asks Samus: 'What's your phone number and can we meet after the de...bate...'" Xenolord stared at the card and tore it up. "Completely unrelated to the subject. Let's move on to our timed Point-Counterpoint section. Each contestant will be givin thirty seconds to make a point, to which his or her opponent will be given equal time to make a counterpoint. Remember, you do not have to use up all thirty seconds. Mr. Strife, you may begin."

"Thank you. Alright, let's talk about sheer volume. A... Our subject has been called by two first names, that we all know, but I believe the correct name should be the one they kept. They have kept the TH spelling for over five titles, and I don't think they'd do that if it were the wrong spelling. I am finished."

"Mrs. Aran, you're counterpoint?"

"They've been using the TH spelling for so long for one of two reasons. Either one, out of sheer lazyness, or two, out of fandom request! They're either lazy off their asses and can't be bothered to change it, or there's such an" She made finger quotes. "'Aerith' fan base, that they don't have the balls to change it! That simple. I'm done." Samus crossed her arms and smirked.

"Very good. What's your next point, Mrs. Aran?"

"Well, my next point is simply this. The sheer beauty of Aeris compared to Aerith. Who in their right friggin' mind sticks a TH at the end of their kid's name? I mean, come on. How good would Samuth sound? Which one sounds better? Aerith, or Aeris? Samuth or Samus?"

"Okay, okay..." Cloud burst in. "Counterpoint, you're an idiot."

"That's not a counterpoint, Mr. Strife, it's an insult. Please make a valid counterpoint, or be ejected."

"Alright, alright. Counterpoint, we're not talking about you here, Samuth. We're talking about Aerith. Not you. If you ask me, I think both are equally beautiful, it's just 'Aeris' isn't correct."

"Alright, you have both had a chance to make a point and a counterpoint. We will move on to our final section, the explanation section. You will have an unlimited time to make your case before the audience. Mr. Strife, you may go first."

"Gladly, Xenolord." He inhaled. "Now, I would just like to ask you, Samuth, for the record, how long have you know Aerith?"

"Not at all that long, really, only a couple of years."

"Nyexactly. I've know her my whole life, I think, if anyone in this room is more qualified to say which version of her name is correct, beside herself, is me! And if I'm wrong, then I don't deserve to be up here anymore then you, Mrs. Aran. Besides... The fans have spoken! The overwhelming majority of Final Fantasy Fans and Foes alike agree, without a shadow of a doubt that Aerith is correct. And the fans... the fans, Mrs. Aran... the fans never lie. I rest my case." He stood straight.

"Very well spoken, Mr. Strife. Mrs. Aran?"

"Oh, you're goin' down, blondy. While Mr. Strife over here based... no... _wasted_ his explanation time basing his arguments on fandom or some crap like that, I would like to base my closing arguments on Translation."

"Translation?" Came the entire audience.

"Yes. Translation. The reason I was invited here today is not because I know the subject persay, but it is because I know what the subject must go through daily. Aerith, or Aeris..." She looked about. "Zebeth, or Zebes." She smiled. "Now, I know what you're all thinking... 'Oh no... not this crap again!' but this is a valid point. Before I continue, here is the reasoning behind this translation argument. For all of you not fluent in the Japanese language, here's a crash-course. The Japanese, unlike the Americans, or British, do not have an S sound. Nor, as we know, do they have an L sound. 'What does this matter?' You ask. Well, here's how. 1986. My first mission to the Planet Zebes... then called Zebeth. Now, why this all of a sudden? It is because the Japanese, as stated, do not have an S sound! So, in substitution, they used the closest sound they had..." There came the general 'ah' of realization from the audience. "That's right. The TH sound. And so, Zebeth, as it was orginally Transliterated from Japanese, was actually supposed to be written if _translated_ as Zebes. I believe we have a similar, if not the exact same problem here. However, unlike the Zebeth Zebes debate, which has long been solved, we have the opposite problem. When Metroid came out in 1986, it was Zebeth, but when Super Metroid was released in 1994, it was pronounced Zebes. HOWEVER, when Final Fantasy Seven came out, it was Aeris, but during any subsiquent viewing of her, it has been Aerith. And so, I present the two 'L's of Translation. _Literal Translation_, and _Logical Translation_. Similar in design, different in execution. 'What's the difference', you ask? Well, here it is.

"_Literal Translation_ is the act of directly translating one language to another. As you all know, some languages do not have the same sentence structure as our language does. For example, a simple sentence, such as... 'Did you enjoy your dinner, Xenolord?' may be 'Xenolord, enjoy dinner?' in another. If we literally translate the above sentence into English, instead of what it's supposed to mean, we'd get what it says. The most perfect example of Literal Translation I can think of is Zero Wing. When Toaplan brought Zero Wing over, the cinematic went down in history as the infamous 'All Your Base are Belong to Us.', which we can only guess probably meant, if logically translated. 'All of your bases have been captured by us.' Same meaning, completely different sentence.

"_Logical Translation_ is completely different. Instead of translating a sentence directly from it's parent language to it's new one, we translate it literally, then add words that are missing from the sentence, rearrange some things to get the real meaning.

"This brings us to my point. Metroid, the original Metroid, was brought over to the US back when the NES was the hottest thing on the market. We didn't have much knowledge about translation. And so, unsure what to do, we Literally Translated it, and got Zebeth. However, as the years rode on, we began to get smarter, and then, in time, Logically Translated Zebeth back, to Zebes. What it is supposed to be. What we have with the Aerith Aeris thing is the reverse. Since Final Fantasy Seven is so much more younger then Metroid, we had the advantage of Logically Translating it to begin with, and so, what we saw was Aerith, but we knew what it really meant was... Aeris. Now, the question remains... why did Square Enix, at the time Square Soft go from Logically Translating her name, to Literally Translating her name? Who knows? But the fact still remains. I firmly believe, when Logically Translated, Aeris is the correct name." She inhaled and nodded to Xenolord.

"Wow. Just... just... wow." Xenolord muttered.

"The logic... it hurts my brain..." The scratchy voice of Ridley the Space Dragon came from the audience.

"It's strangely interesting." Cloud muttered.

-End-

Now, I know I ended this on a cliffhanger, but I don't want to say who won the debate. I know, I know I'm heavily biased to the Aeris point of view, but I believe what I believe, and I believe it's Aeris. I know I can't change the world, but if I have enough people read this and understand it, maybe we, together can. And end this stupid Aerith Aeris stuff. Because I'm quite sick of it. Yea, those are my notes.


End file.
